


Make Me All That I Am

by uaevuon



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Asexual Character, Gen, Other, Queerplatonic Relationships, Translation Available, rated M for mentions of ciel's torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 10:56:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5494637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uaevuon/pseuds/uaevuon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t deny that they are too close. Of course they are. But not in the way those immensely (but reasonably) protective adults think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Me All That I Am

**Author's Note:**

> this story works upon the assumption that ciel's suffering at the hands of the cult that kidnapped him included sexual torture. please proceed with caution. 
> 
> and it has been translated into [italian](http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=3478054)! thanks so much, fauna96.

Wolfram isn’t the first person to misinterpret their actions; in fact it happens so often that Ciel should be used to it by now, and he is, but the calculating way Wolf watches them is disconcerting nonetheless. Ciel barely understands a word of the brusque way he often speaks to Sebastian after the demon has gotten what he deems to be too close for comfort, particularly when Sebastian’s bare hands touch Ciel, but he knows the gist of it, and Wolf’s eyes say enough. His aunt had said as much in the same tone and in plain English; Ciel never did completely set her straight before she met her bitter, bitter end. And plenty of others had wondered just the same. But at least they know better than to say anything outside of the Manor; if word spread that Ciel was “too close” to his lowly butler then he would be ruined -- whether it was by Sebastian’s doing that they’d become so close, or by his own. 

He doesn’t deny that they are too close. Of course they are. But not in the way those immensely (but reasonably) protective adults think. 

It isn’t just adults, Ciel remembers, as he watches Sieglinde’s eyes stray from Elizabeth to follow Wolf’s line of sight, trained on Sebastian’s hands (now gloved) fixing the ribbon around Ciel’s neck. Perhaps it is indecent to adjust his clothing outside of his dressing room, and in front of company no less; even if it is only something so simple as a ribbon gone askew. Elizabeth’s mother joins in the staring too, until Sebastian deems the bow perfect and steps back, retrieves his silver tray, and leaves the room. 

Ciel also remembers his once-classmates’ questions, and in particular a blushing, slightly drunk Joanne Harcourt whispering to him past midnight in a clear breach of conduct that Ciel really shouldn’t confuse the vicar’s pretty face for a woman’s. Dangerous though the accusation was, Ciel had laughed then, loud and clear and it wasn’t even an act. They nearly got caught, too, out in the chapel well past lights-out with a stolen bottle of communion wine between them. But of course, Sebastian’s rooms were in the chapel, and he turned the night watch away effortlessly. 

“I’m not trying to go to bed with him. We just get along,” Ciel said, much quieter, tucking himself more fully into the shadows behind the altar. “Though you seem to have some interesting thoughts about him. You called him ‘pretty’, did you?”

Joanne had blushed harder, and nothing more was said as he upended the bottle into his own mouth. Not until later, when Joanne was well and truly drunk and Ciel had, with great amusement, listened to him babble about his increasingly explicit fantasies, some of them quite… _inspired_ , to say the least. Ciel swore at every provocation that he would tell no-one, and he meant it. 

The next morning Sebastian had admonished Ciel about stealing the wine; in part because he was too young to drink so heavily, and in part because Sebastian could have gotten him something of much higher quality than the “grape piss” stored in the chapel. Though, being what he was, he did take some pride that Ciel had stolen more than just his own soul from the clutches of the Church. 

He said not a word about Joanne’s fantasies, though he must have heard them. Not even to make fun of Ciel for having listened with such rapt attention. Attention, like Sebastian’s fingers slipping the ribbon off his neck, smoothing it out with his fingers, and knotting it once again in a perfect bow. Attention, like half the eyes in the room on those hands. 

Ciel wants none of what Joanne did, but it had been... _interesting_ to listen to. Interesting in the way it both amused and unsettled him; interesting in that Joanne was so seemingly innocent and yet so knowledgeable about things that were so taboo. 

Ciel supposes, if he were to want any of _that_ from anyone, it would make sense to ask it of someone who was so tightly bound to his orders. 

The Marchioness drops her eyes as soon as Sebastian’s hands leave Ciel, but Wolfram’s follow the butler to the door and he only turns away from it when Sieglinde, choosing once again to let it slide, hands him a cup of tea. She, unlike Wolfram, is not bothered by the idea that her host and his butler may be intimate; it seems rather to delight her. But Wolf is Wolf, and Ciel has no doubt he will be kept awake tonight by angry German whispers from the hall outside his bedroom. 

He wonders if he should play with them, but quickly dismisses the idea. The game is exciting enough without him actively playing it. Ciel just wishes Wolfram would bring it up in front of him, in English perhaps, because every game must end eventually and this one has gone on too long, and Ciel’s word will of course convince him better than Sebastian’s. Aunt Francis has already come to him, it must have been over a year ago, in worries that Ciel would stray from his promise to her daughter more so than that Sebastian was manipulating him (because she knows Ciel better than that at least) and though he’s sworn there is nothing for her to be concerned about she still watches them, though now less hawk-like and more in interest, trying to figure out what it is they are to each other if not lovers. 

He wouldn’t have an answer for her if she asked. They are many things; contractor and servant, master and butler, soul and demon, meal and mouth -- but as for the curious relationship they’ve developed outside of their power struggle, or alongside it, there isn’t a word, or if there is Ciel doesn’t know it. 

Ciel, thinking on words, returns his attention to the novel in his hands, another brilliant work by his wordsmith. Perhaps he would know a word. Ciel’s lips curl into something like a smile, but more sinister, more teasing, when he remembers the awkward man himself. Completely bewildered by the grandeur he’d so suddenly entered into, and then even more so by Ciel’s attention. 

He chuckles. _Attention_. That was certainly a way to put it. As if he hadn’t consciously done it, practiced turning a wide blue eye up to his mirror, dropping his eyelid slightly, smiling gently, and committing the feeling to muscle memory -- all he’d wanted to do with the man was talk, honestly! But he wondered if he could have the same kind of effect on people that Sebastian so effortlessly did. Ciel had been drawn by Arthur’s intelligence, and it had seemed like a fun game; to try and manipulate someone with such a good eye for trickery. 

He’d been not unpleasantly surprised when they ended up handcuffed to a bed together, and noticed Arthur watching him sleep, but that was the point at which it ended. He’d run his little experiment, to a success. And anyway, Sebastian had come in with a stench of blood about him that only Ciel could make out from the smell of candles and smoke that eternally pervaded the entire house, and he’d prepared himself for what was sure to be an even greater game. 

But not such a fun one after all, as he was met in the morning by the familiar sight of Sebastian’s lifeless body and the unfamiliar experience of him not simply waking up with a dangerous smile and a joke. Ciel knew it was all a farce, of course, but the idea of losing the demon somehow took up a horror in him. When he struck Sebastian across the face he hadn’t even noticed he had his rings on. And the screaming had been all too real. 

He shivers. Lizzie notices and asks if he’s cold. 

“A bit,” he says, and he calls for Sebastian, barely raising his voice but knowing the butler will hear him even in the kitchens as if he is just outside the door. 

“Light the fire,” Ciel instructs when Sebastian comes in. It shouldn’t technically be his job, but of course neither of them trusts Mey-Rin to do it. 

Sebastian smiles and produces a box of matches from his coat that Ciel is certain had been a handkerchief mere moments before. The box, like many of Sebastian’s transfigured products, is embossed with a design that Ciel had once thought just a series of lines, perhaps in the demon’s own language, but in fact it simply follows Sebastian’s curious obsession with Japan, and it translates to the name of his… species, or whatever one wants to call it. 

_Akuma shitsuji_. A demon butler. Or, perhaps more accurate to Sebastian’s nature, a servant demon. More colloquially, _one hell of a butler_ , as Sebastian so often likes to call himself. 

Ciel turns a page, leaves Sebastian to his work. He isn’t reading, not really; he’s read this novel before. He is content to think, and appear to read, as Sieglinde plays with Lizzie. He appreciates their blooming friendship as much as he fears it. They’re smart. Perhaps too smart, and if they put their efforts together Ciel has no doubt they could figure out the truth of Sebastian’s origin. But they are also very attached to him, and will need support when his soul passes over to Sebastian. And Lizzie will certainly need the love that Ciel could not give her even if he lives; Sieglinde, no doubt, provides that in excess. 

He turns his eyes on Sebastian, who is crouched down and stroking the fire to life. He supposes he can understand why so many people think he is drawn to this creature in some indecent way. Sebastian is attractive; even Ciel can admit that, and though he has no interest in such things he supposes there are qualities of the form his demon has taken that could be… _stimulating_ to some. And as someone so tied to the underworld, it follows that Ciel would be the victim of rumours like this. 

But really, even if he did care for physical affection, this form of Sebastian’s has so many similarities to the one Ciel imagined he would one day grow into that such a consideration would be much like courting himself. He’s changed a great deal since Ciel first met him, in his face as much as in his manner; only someone who spends as much time with him as Ciel does would notice. Sebastian’s face is entirely his own, now, but Ciel can still see traces of himself in it. 

No, it’s not possible. As highly as Ciel may think of himself, he is no Narcissus. 

Wolfram follows Sebastian out, this time, and Ciel smirks. He supposes Sebastian has come to the same conclusions as he has; only a second of the usual German can be heard before Sebastian cuts him off, rather loudly, and says, “In English, or I shall not listen to it.” 

Wolfram fumbles with a response, and Sebastian’s footsteps echo in the hall, followed by Wolf’s steps and halting whispers. 

Ciel shuts his book and rises. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, mostly for show. “I believe our butlers are about to have a bit of a disagreement. I shall return.” He leaves the room, content in the knowledge that Sieglinde is more than safe in the company of all four Midfords, and follows the voices down to the kitchens. 

He isn’t supposed to be down here. He doesn’t particularly care. Wolfram is getting louder, and Ciel waits outside the door for the right moment. 

“He stares at you. And you at him. You fix his clothing in front of us. You said yourself I should never do that with Sieglinde; you break your own rules.”

“A neck ribbon is hardly clothing.” 

Ciel huffs a quiet laugh. He can imagine Sebastian smiling, seemingly unaffected, while his skin turns fire-hot with rage and he tries not to singe a rolling pin or other kitchen tool -- or throw it at Wolfram’s head. And the way Sebastian says _hardly clothing_ brings to Ciel’s mind an image of his own self, nude but for a neck ribbon -- and then of Sebastian, wearing the same. He stifles another laugh, for it is sure to be louder. 

“The way you touch each other --”

“Is as I order,” Ciel interrupts, entering through the open door. 

Wolfram tenses, startled by Ciel’s arrival, but doesn’t back down. “It is indecent.” 

Ciel purses his lips. “Are you insinuating that I do _indecent_ things with my butler?” 

“Yes.”

He has to admire the man’s bravery; by all means Ciel is within his rights to have Wolfram arrested for such slander. But he doesn’t want to go that far. “How dare you.”

“He may have done nothing yet, but he wants to. I see it in his eyes. He looks at you like he is hungry.”

“Well of course he does.” 

“You do not understand --”

“ _You_ don’t understand, and I am under no obligation to explain anything to you.” He admires his bravery, but it also annoys him. “He is my butler, no more, perhaps less; his place is that of a dog begging for scraps at my table.” Ciel knows Sebastian will be insulted only by the comparison to a dog; it is retaliation for how Sebastian had noted his hair like the fur of a cat this morning while dressing him. 

“I know what he is. The devil himself.” Wolfram crosses himself; Ciel didn’t take him for religious and is surprised by the action, but not by his words. “He hungers for more than your soul.”

 _That_ surprises Ciel more than the cross. Numerous foes have called Sebastian a demon, but they had never meant it so literally. And that is just enough to make Ciel wonder if he is right in his other observations. 

“Is that true, Sebastian?” He can’t say he hasn’t thought of it. Sebastian is a _demon_ , after all; perversity is part of his nature, as is sin (and how curious it is that they are not, apparently, always one and the same?). But he never believed it. He’d thought -- he’d _thought_ \--

“My lord…” Sebastian hesitates. 

“Answer the question.” Ciel has no patience for Sebastian’s deterrents. “That’s an order.”

Sebastian looks afraid. Perhaps no-one else would notice; he merely frowns in the way he always does when he is somehow displeased. But Ciel knows. 

“Now, Sebastian.” His heart beats fast; the more Sebastian stalls the more Ciel is certain the answer will not be to his liking. 

Sebastian grits his teeth, and Ciel catches a glimpse of fangs before he says, “I hunger for any part of my Master that he is willing to give.”

Ciel turns on his heel and leaves the room. The ribbon-clad self in his fantasies disappears, and along with it any idea of _fun_ gained from this most perverse game. 

He doesn’t run. He wants to, but he knows Sebastian will catch him anyway, will follow faster if he does and if he merely walks then he can order Sebastian not to follow him if he tries. 

Sebastian doesn’t follow. 

\---

Ciel has been staring at the same page of his novel, reading nothing, for over an hour. His mood is sour, and he sours the whole room with it. 

Wolfram has returned. Sebastian has not. 

_I should have never trusted him_ , Ciel thinks. _He’s just as disgusting as those from whom he saved me three years ago._

He had seen Sebastian as his saviour then. Even if Sebastian lost his trust with the stunt he recently played with Ciel’s soul, he had been trying to earn it back. 

_Filthy beast_ , his thoughts continue. _How dare he think of me in such a way?_

There is nothing surprising about this. He knows it. He should have expected nothing else. Sebastian is, after all, a demon. But it hurts no less. He had really thought, after all this and the way Sebastian treats him, that the demon perhaps, somehow, cares. 

The Midfords leave. Elizabeth wants to stay but her parents are well-attuned to Ciel’s moods and know when it is time to go; Edward agrees with them on principle, and escorts Elizabeth out himself. Sieglinde goes to bed not long after, carried out by Wolfram. He doesn’t want to leave Ciel alone at first, but Ciel assures him he will be safe enough. “In any case, he cannot defy my orders.” 

Wolf gives Ciel a pitying look on the way out. Ciel remains in his chair, his novel now forgotten in his lap, and he stares into the dying fire. He rather pities himself; he must stay in this contract, his soul bound to someone he now realises he should hate. Scarcely does he notice the passage of time now that he is alone until he is distracted by the pendulum of the clock in the corner. Sebastian has still not returned, despite that it is nearing Ciel’s bedtime. 

Perhaps he did order the demon away, and forgot. Or perhaps Sebastian had just so thoroughly embarrassed himself that he doesn’t want to show his face. 

_Preposterous_ , Ciel thinks. The demon has no morals with which to embarrass himself. 

Then again, he had no emotions with which to care, and Ciel still thought he did. 

“Sebastian,” he calls. The demon is not immediately at his side, and this annoys him. “Sebastian!” he repeats with a bit more force. Still, there is no sign of him. 

This is nothing less than a betrayal. 

“You are supposed to come when I call.”

Nothing. If anything the room feels emptier. 

Ciel sighs heavily and removes his eyepatch, blinking as his tired right eye adjusts to the dim light cast by the embers in the fireplace, and his contract seal glows. “Sebastian, this is an order. Come to me.”

“I am here, my lord.”

The voice seems to emanate from the very walls, and Ciel has no time for games. “Show yourself.”

Sebastian steps out from behind Ciel’s chair; his face betrays no emotion. He bows lower than usual, hand pressed to his chest as always. “Young Master, it is time for you to retire for the night.”

“Did you mean what you said before?” Ciel is afraid to ask, but like most things which he fears, he does anyway. 

Sebastian answers immediately, not daring to run Ciel in circles for a question so serious. “I was honest, as I always am.”

“As you always are?” Sebastian’s habit of honesty is to tell the base truth and no more, so there must, of course, be more. “What are you not telling me?”

“I have told you everything there is to tell.”

Then understanding the whole truth is up to Ciel’s interpretation. That is, perhaps, even more infuriating. “You desire me.”

“I do.”

“My body as well as my soul.” It sickens Ciel to hear the words fall from his mouth. In a part of his mind, he is ten years old again. He feels hands tearing at his clothes, other appendages tearing at parts of him he’d rather not put thought to. 

“Yes.”

Ciel’s face contorts; he knows not what expression he is left with. Something like disgust, as if Sebastian is a worm he has just stepped on. He certainly wishes that were the case. “You can’t have it.” 

“Is that an order?” Sebastian asks. There is no challenge in the eyes that finally meet Ciel’s. Even the hue has changed; it is not the vivid magenta that shows his hunger, nor the garnet-colour they usually are, but a gentler, more human brown. 

Ciel doesn’t let Sebastian’s obvious show of submission dilute his anger. “Of course it’s an order! You can have no part of my body!” 

Sebastian closes his eyes and smiles. “Very well. Then I want none of it.”

Impossible. Impossible! That only Ciel’s word could change Sebastian’s nature; that a demon could have more decency than the humans (though they were barely that) who took him from his home at ten years old. And yet -- Sebastian drops to one knee and leans forward once more in a bow. 

“Thank you, my lord,” he says, more quietly, more gently than Ciel has ever heard him. 

“What?” is all Ciel can say. He can’t believe this. Of all the sights that he had seen, the rumours he had heard over the course of his short life, people rising from the dead and all the supernatural creatures of every mythology becoming natural as the grass in the untamed forest that surrounds his property, _this_ he cannot believe, though he so desperately wants to. 

“You have taken from me that desire which I most wanted destroyed,” Sebastian says. “Thank you.” 

“I-I-” Could it really have been so easy? 

“Young Master, our contract, and your orders within it, make me all that I am.” His voice is quiet, barely more than a whisper; were they any other two people but themselves, Ciel might have called it romantic. 

Ciel covers his face with his hands, a gesture that makes him feel every bit the innocent, sickly, unsocialised, and sheltered child he had been before his tenth birthday; before the painful month following ruined him beyond anything he could ever have imagined; before he learned what pride was just in time for proud, sadistic monsters of adults to do everything in their power to try and take his pride from him. “How?” He wonders if he should throw himself upon the floor and kick his legs in a tantrum, for all the whining that single word’s tone has brought forth. 

“Please, my lord, do not ask me to explain the complexities of a demon contract to you once again.”

“Remind me,” Ciel demands, hands still covering his face. 

Sebastian moves Ciel’s long-forgotten novel to the side table and gently takes his wrists; his hands are bare now, and he pulls Ciel’s away from his face. He transfers one over, to hold both delicate wrists gently in his unmarked hand, strong enough to suggest Ciel should remain there but loose enough that he may pull away if he so desires. The demon raises his left hand next to his face, turned so he is showing the contract seal to Ciel. His eyes are once again a deep red, but still without fire or catlike slits for pupils. “Anything you ask of me, you shall have, until the day I take your soul. That is my job as a demon butler, and as a servant of the house of Phantomhive.”

“I don’t suppose I could remove your desire for my soul.” He finds he is less willing to give it up as each day passes. Though he will not go back on his word, he must still wonder. 

Sebastian chuckles, and with his raised hand brushes some of Ciel’s hair out of his face to more clearly see the matching pentagram in his eye. “That, my lord, is something that no order of yours could ever change.”

It reassures Ciel, somehow, to hear that. There are always limits. The hand on his face feels comforting, rather than terrifying as it perhaps should, and Ciel leans into it. He closes his eyes; the violet glow of his right eye’s contract seal burns through his eyelid for a moment before fading slowly as it is obscured. “I am tired, Sebastian.”

“Will you go to bed now that your safety is assured?”

“Yes. But I believe I am too tired to walk there.” The clock reads almost midnight; Ciel is certain that by the time he is in bed, a new day will have already begun. 

Sebastian rises, and he picks Ciel up in his arms as if he weighs no more than a feather. “Do try not to fall asleep in my arms, Young Master.”

“Have I ever done that before?” Moments ago he would have strained from Sebastian’s touch; now, he leans in close, tucks his face into Sebastian’s scentless neck and curls his small fingers into his waistcoat. 

“The first time I ever carried you,” Sebastian answers, just before Ciel shuts his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> i've been writing this for about six months now, and angsting over it, trying to make it something i'm satisfied with more so than i usually do with my fic. basically, it's how i see sebastian and ciel's relationship. i should mention i have nothing against sebaciel, hell i ship it to a degree, it's just not my #1 preference to see these two as a couple. 
> 
> i'm still not sure how i feel about the way i wrote this but i'm putting it out there anyway.


End file.
